


i saw my two feet on the ground

by curlymcclain



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Boris POV, Fluff, I dont know what. i dont know, Light Angst, M/M, Vegas Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26278660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlymcclain/pseuds/curlymcclain
Summary: Now might be a good time to make the trip to Desert End, Boris thinks. If anyone still lives there, they might let him look around. Or, more likely, wouldn’t take much notice of someone sitting in a car and staring at their house. But Boris doesn’t think it would be a good idea to see that sidewalk, or the window into the bedroom, where the painting used to live. Maybe it would be a better idea to get in his car and head back into town.Boris remembers an afternoon.
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	i saw my two feet on the ground

**Author's Note:**

> I went back to feel alone there  
> I went back there by myself  
> And gave up on everything that we'd felt
> 
> not sure what this is or why but. i miss them

Almost two hours away from their neighborhood, there was a quarry. By car, it was probably less than one, but that didn’t make any difference, since no one was ever going to drive them there.

The place had been abandoned for decades, almost a hundred years. It looked like nothing as you approached it, a mirage in the heat becoming realer and realer the closer you’d come to its edge. When you looked down, you’d see descending dusty ledges of stone, like a giant staircase made for a god, to walk down at his leisure. It was where companies used to get stone until they found some cheaper way. 

Boris was never good at remembering the word “quarry”.

He’s on his own today, having convinced Gyuri (with some hassle) to let him take the car out for the afternoon. This was the first time he’d had business in Las Vegas since he’d moved away, and something had compelled him to drive out to his old neighborhood. 

He didn’t know what to expect save for a pile of rocks- it was hard not to let out a short laugh of surprise when he turned onto his street and saw his old house still standing. Boris pulled up and moved to open the car door. He tried to. He told his muscles to, but they wouldn’t obey.

Instead, Boris sat in his old driveway and stared up at the house. For how long, he didn’t know, but the sun shifted quite a bit. In the near decade since he’d been here, he’d been sure someone would have done _something_ to it. If they weren’t going to tear it down, at least they could have sold it. But how could they, he thought, when it so clearly belonged to his father? 

He lingered there, he stood in every frame, his silhouette behind every curtain. Boris was sure if he cracked his car's window he’d smell that damp fabric smell drifting in from the bathroom. The concrete, the little piles of sand building up on the windowsills, the utter violating feeling of abandoned spaces, empty hallways. This house would never belong to anyone else.

Before he could think, Boris pulled out of the driveway so fast he knocked over an old trash can. Without looking back, he drove away from his old house, the small window that looked in on what was once his bedroom. _Best to leave it all behind,_ Boris thought. _Maybe I should turn back and burn it to the ground._

He drove for so long, knuckles white and brain stirring, that he didn’t even think to turn down Desert End Road- his real childhood home. Before he could remember to, he was again on the open desert road with no end in sight. Completely lost. He went straight for a while, hoping Gyuri’s computer navigation girl would pipe up soon. 

That was when it caught his eye. The pit. What was the word for it again?

He’d found the place not long after moving there- before he’d made his one friend Boris would go on long walks by himself, smoking and making little circles in the sand as he walked, surveying the desert around him from under his umbrella. He’d sit with his legs dangling over the edge and find things to throw as deep into the pit as he could. Stones, cigarette butts, bits of leaves he’d forced into a ball. Once, a 2p piece in his pocket he must have picked up months earlier and forgotten about. The best use for it could then be found in the shrill echo it made when he chucked it. 

It was a good place to read, provided the heat wasn’t too excruciating. But usually it was. So the quarry was only his hiding place a few times; finding it again at night, when his father was home, was unfortunately impossible. He'd all but forgotten about it by the time he had started shacking up in the Decker house. It just never came up. 

Boris pulls over clumsily. This time, he has no problem getting out of the car, and he walks to the precipice. Fishing in his pockets, he finds a number of rolling papers, a wad of cash, and- bullseye- a few coins, Russian. He throws one in, and with his arm much stronger than it used to be it goes so far he can’t hear it when it lands. 

Boris breathes in the hot air, allows it to fill his lungs up with those years he’d taken so much for granted. His eyes then land on a ledge, thirty or so feet below where he stands. He remembers the afternoon spent on that ledge so clearly he’s surprised not to see the print of his own legs, still embedded in the sand.

* * *

They would fight a lot. It was something they knew about their friendship since the day they met. They fight a lot. Theo is always upset with him over the stupid things he’d say, and Boris is always furious over the things Theo would not. It was part of their wicked little routine.

Today had felt different. Boris knew something was bound to snap from the moment he saw him by his locker in the hall. 

Boris had slept at his own house last night for the first time in two weeks, but didn’t really sleep at all. Between the sound of his father downstairs knocking things off the table like a housecat, the little bit of speed still in his system from his day with Theo before, and the overwhelming emptiness of his bedroom, it was never going to happen in the first place. He sleeps so much better with someone else there, he wonders how he’s gotten this far on his own. How he will go back to sleeping alone after he gets dragged out of here.

Boris is bounding up to him, preparing to ignore Theo’s sour face and tell him about the mess his father left in the sink, but he stops when he notices how the muscles in Theo's cheek jut out, the whiteness of his knuckles on the locker door. He’s glaring at his books as he shoves them inside and slams it shut.

Boris _tsks_ and smiles when Theo jumps at his sudden appearance (like he’s seen in so many films). “Bad night for Potter,” he says severely. 

“Shut up.” Still staring at the ugly tile beneath his feet. 

“Is what happens when you kick me out.”

Theo turns away, scowling, so fast Boris has to hop to catch up. “I didn’t kick you out.”

“Scared of what Xandra and me might get up to in the other room, eh?” Boris wiggles his eyebrows.

Theo stops and finally looks up, frowning even more deeply. “I didn’t kick you out,” he says firmly. He starts walking again. “And you know that’s not funny.”

“Who said I was joking?”

When he’s like this, Boris has two options: make nasty jokes until Theo beats him up enough to get it out of his system, or drug him into oblivion so he forgets all about it. A shame for Boris’ ribcage, since he’d left his stash at home.

Theo turns towards his science class, the one Boris doesn’t have enough credits for. If they’d had Spirsetskaya right now, he’d be able to get it out of him. Instead, Theo just veers around a corner and out of sight, mumbling something about how he’s _really_ not in the mood.

Boris spends his American History class trying to put his finger on what felt different. Usually, if it’s not something that Boris did, it has to do with Theo's old life, the one he pretends not to miss when he’s sober. The look he’d given, stopped in the hall, keeps throwing Boris. There was something small and grim in his eyes, something fresh. He seemed angry, like he so often does, but not just that. Something nastier. Something like sadness or fear, things they try every single day to avoid however possible.

He doesn’t see Theo again until lunchtime, which he spends leaned over a book while Boris picks his teeth and sits on the table, occasionally smearing the bits of food he digs out onto the novel’s pages. Theo swats his hand away every time, which Boris interprets as a good sign.

Finally: “Fucking knock it off.”

“Knock what off,” Boris asks innocently. 

Theo squints up at him- Boris is struck suddenly by how much older he looks than when they’d met, how much tanner, leaner- “If you’re going to keep doing that, I’m gonna fucking go.”

Boris grins. “Go where?”

“Somewhere,” he shifts in his seat, “I’ll go sit with someone else.”

Putting a hand above his eyes, Boris makes a show of looking around them. “Who? You will go sit with your many friends?”

Theo slams the book shut in a huff that makes Boris snort. “Maybe.” He clearly wanted to think of something more cutting to say. He sighs. “Whatever. Just don’t do- that.”

Quickly, Boris hops off the table and sits on the bench next to him, one leg on either side so he can see his irritated profile. “Talk,” he says. “Something is wrong with you.”

“Something’s wrong with _me?_ ” 

“Today. Something wrong with you today. You are being strange, I don’t like it. Is throwing off my day now.” 

Theo purses his lips and looks down at his hands, twisted in his lap. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t even be upset about it,” he says quietly, teeth almost gritted with how much he does not want to talk.

Boris holds out his arms- _well?_

He sighs again. “My parents’ anniversary was today. That’s it. Okay. Are we done.”

“Ah. Always this with you, Potter, I knew it.”

Theo jerks back. “What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I just knew it was something like that. Always is.”

In Boris’ mind, this is not something to offend, but a simple fact for Theo to roll his eyes at. Instead, he slides closer on the bench and stomps Boris’ foot as hard as he can.

 _“Blyad!_ What’d you do that for?”

In lieu of an answer, Theo gets up and walks away. 

* * *

  
Boris suspects, based on the things he has whispered to him in their drunken nighttime hazes, that Theo thinks they know everything about each other. He thinks they understand each other’s every thought before the other thinks it, that they are two parts of one person. Boris is not so sure this is true. He wishes so much that it was. But as it is, Theo does things that confuse him. He scares him and surprises him in ways Boris doubts he could reciprocate. For the first time ever in his life, Boris is the predictable one. And for the most part, he likes it quite a lot. 

But on days like this, he wishes they could just be as batshit crazy together as Theo pretends they are. Maybe it would keep Boris from letting him get off the bus at his stop and not following him, just because Theo told him to. As the bus passes him walking down the sandy path, Boris wonders why on earth he should be following his instructions.

And he had been right- it isn’t about anything he’d done. (Seven months ago, on April 10th, Theo stayed in bed all day, except for one trip downstairs to float in the pool, which he didn’t get out of until Boris dragged him, kicking and screaming. But he’d been prepared for that day. He was lucky it wasn’t worse. And Boris has been bracing for her birthday like others train for a marathon.)

Today is hard, though. Is this bad enough to have to keep an eye on him? Or just okay enough that it’s best to let him be? Boris frets over the question as he walks the long way from the last bus stop to his house, and has almost decided to grab some weed and head to Theo’s anyway when he sees his dad’s truck in the driveway. He checks the time- not even four o’clock. Nothing good can come of it, he reasons, and turns back around.

His feet take him in the direction of Theo’s house, but he sticks again to his nonsensical promise not to follow. He considers taking the bus to the grocery store, but doesn't feel like holding a bunch of loose produce in his sleeves the whole way back. 

Ambling listlessly down the road, which is just a long stretch of sand that’s been tamped down by hundreds of sets of tires, he tries not to think of Theo, but that has become harder to do as of late. Something has changed recently, and Boris doesn't know what. He doesn’t want to know what. But there has been something uncomfortable in the way they touch, even just brushing hands as they pass a bottle back and forth. He knows he doesn’t like it. 

And when they had started messing around nearly every night, Boris had felt rather casual about it, even when he thought of it the next morning. But lately he’s found himself thinking less of what Theo's hands were doing and more of his face, and Boris wishes he understood why that feels so much worse. 

He’s walked much farther than he planned, he realizes, looking around. He wonders if he should turn back, until he sees the ragged footpath leading away from the road, forty feet ahead or so. It’s been too long, he thinks, since he threw things down into the pit. 

_Today would be a good day for it, only I’d need to find something I know would shatter._

The quarry materializes in front of him like it had all those months ago. He starts to climb down onto the shallowest ledge, when a voice almost knocks him down and into oblivion. 

“Boris?”

He manages not to slip and die. Once he regains his footing, Boris turns and sees him, to his right and much further down. 

“Potter?” he wrinkles his nose at him.

Theo’s face is scrunched up, too, though Boris suspects it’s from the sunshine and not a sudden burst of levity. “Did you follow me here?” he calls out.

“No!” Boris starts to clamor down to where he is, ignoring the old climbing equipment that probably would break under his weight anyway. “Flattering yourself, Potter.”

He turns away as Boris keeps going, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. When he reaches Theo, Boris sits beside him and sees angry red skids on his palms. “Had some trouble getting down?”

“Can’t complain,” he puts them palm-down on his old khakis, which must sting like a bitch. 

“Boris,” he says carefully.

“Hm?” Boris lights two cigarettes and passes him one. 

“...You think I’m a dick?”

Boris laughs, a short bark that echoes through the rocks. “Sure. What is making you ask that?”

“I was just wondering. I never used to think I was but-“ he starts to chortle along- “Stop it- Since I moved here- seriously, I’m trying to talk- I think a lot has changed, that’s all-!” He punches Boris’ arm as he can’t get the last sentence out over the laughter.

“What a stupid fucking question, of course you are a dick. What’s wrong with it,” Boris says. 

“Well, I don’t want to be.”

“Too bad.”

Another punch in the arm.

“Since when do you care what people here think?” Boris asks. “Everyone here is ten times worse, always and forever. Automatic, they are worse.”

“Why’s that?”

In response, he gestures around them with wide, open arms. Theo’s eyes follow; and his smile fades as he looks out over the quarry. He's silent for a long, sad moment that Boris, hater of silence, cannot bring himself to interrupt. The sun is starting to set, and an orange glow is just hitting the tips of the hairs sticking up on top of his head. If Boris was a painter like Theo’s friend Carel, he thinks he would want to paint them.

Before he can think any harder, Theo mercifully speaks. “I don’t care about the people here. I don’t give a shit what they think, if they think I’m hiding bodies in my basement, whatever. They’re fucking idiots.”

Boris furrows his brow. “Then-“

“I mean, I care what _you_ think. You don’t count. I don’t care at all what anyone thinks about me, except that- you don’t count.”   
  
The orange light is inching down toward his forehead.

“Obviously, I don’t mean-“

“I know what you mean,” Boris says. “Is nice. You don’t count, either.”

“Well, when you say it like _that-“_

“Fuck you. You said it.” Theo laughs again, and the light slips over his eyes for a split second as he leans his head back.

Another silence falls. He’s trying to find words. “I was a tool today. And I didn’t even notice that... it’s what I’m like all the time now. I only noticed because I came home, and heard my dad doing the exact same thing. He’s a really good deterrent.” Theo adjusts his glasses right as the sun hits them. “I’m not apologizing. Because you’re definitely the biggest piece of shit I know. I’m just… asking.”

Boris tilts his head to the side, their gesture meaning _fair enough._ “All the best rock stars were biggest bastards in the world.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“Jim Morrison, no one liked. Not for one minute. Lou Reed, your man. Miserable, miserable _sukin syn._ Worse than you. John Lennon hit women, I know how much you hate that.”

“So should-“

“Iggy Pop dated children.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to date children.”

“Well then who are you going to date, you are only fifteen.”

“I barely like Iggy Pop.”

The orange light is just to his chin now, his whole face is on fire, comforting and dangerous. He must see the way Boris is looking. He shrinks back, stares again at his feet. 

“Anyway. It was their anniversary today. And my dad was a prick about it. That’s all.”

Boris tears his eyes away and gazes into the giant deserted pit. He wonders fleetingly if Theo sees the light on his face, too, how it casts shadows that weren’t there before. Theo always notices those things, he just doesn’t mean anything else by it when he does. 

Boris catches himself: _And I do?_

“We should probably go home. Before it gets too dark to climb out.”

“Why not wait? Should be fun to see who dies in giant Star Wars pit first.”

Theo ignores him and stands up. “Give me a lift.”

They climb out, and leave the sun behind them.

* * *

  
Boris stands at the edge of the pit. 

Usually, when he revisits places from his childhood, they seem so much smaller than the last time he was there. Bar stools and countertops he used to gawk at and peek over shrunk as he began to fill up his space in the world. But not this. The quarry seems gigantic, endless from where he stands, all these years later. 

Unconsciously, he starts to look around his feet for something to properly smash, but he doesn’t see anything. Not long after that afternoon, he and Theo had taken a six pack of beer from Larry’s fridge and finished them here, mainly so they could throw the bottles and wait for the satisfying crash. Six crashes.

If he were to climb down now, ruin his suit and his silly dress-up shoes, would he come across all that glass? Probably not. Silly thing to think. 

The sun is sinking, hitting that ledge not too far into the pit. He isn’t completely sure it’s that same one, but it might as well be. After the night with the beers, they hadn’t ever gone back to the quarry. There wasn’t any particular reason; they just never felt the urge to make the trip.

Now might be a good time to make the trek to Desert End, Boris thinks. If anyone still lives there, they might let him look around. Or, more likely, they wouldn’t take much notice of someone sitting in a car and staring at their house. But Boris doesn’t think it would be a good idea to see that sidewalk, or the window into the bedroom, where the painting used to live. Maybe it would be a better idea to get in his car and head back into town. The sun isn't as gold as it was that day; but he supposes he would need someone else here with him to know that for sure.

 _One day,_ he tells himself, like he so often does, _I’ll fix it_. He starts to believe it less every time he thinks it, but thinking it here also just makes him feel like a piece of shit.

_Because you’re definitely the biggest piece of shit I know._

As he gets back into the driver’s seat, the reddish sunlight hits a scraggly tree. Distantly, Boris hears a small bird singing. 

**Author's Note:**

> listen i saw a really good picture of a quarry and two hours later i had this.....i just wanted to write them bantering again..tender banter... oh and the title is from 'the moon' by the microphones which i maintain is THE ultimate number one boreo song
> 
> as always im @ curlymcclain on tumblr and no i dont know whY i wrote this!!! but tell me what you thought!!


End file.
